Winchester Down
by dreamlitnight
Summary: A little one shot, written for a prompt over at hoodietime. Spoiler Alert- a tiny reference to episode 11- season 3. Dean's sneezing is trying Sam's patience, so Dean gets out of his way and loses his way... and Sam to the rescue!


**Title: Winchester Down**

**Author: dreamlitnight**

**Genre/pairing: Supernatural, hurt/comfort**

**Characters: Dean W. and Sam W. and a random couple, who own an orchard**

**Rating: G**

**Word-count: approx. 4,200**

**Summary: Dean can't breathe and Sam doesn't like it.**

**Spoilers: One small (very tiny) reference to an episode in season 3, episode 11**

**Warnings: Contains excessive amounts of sneezing, cold!speak, and angst. **

**Disclaimer: The Winchesters are not mine.**

**Written for prompt at hoodietime -**_So Dean has a bad leg, can't walk on it without pretty severe pain and so he usually takes a lot of painkillers. He somehow whacks his head while far from Sam and wakes up with no recollection of who he is. He's found, maybe in an orchard, by a friendly farmer who tries to figure out what's wrong with this strange young man, why he can't walk well, why he has strange pills in his pockets, and why he's starting to shake and sweat. Drug addict, the farmer decides, and confiscates the pills. Swears to help this fella on the road to recovery. Enter Sam, storming the farm gates, trying to reclaim his poor limping brother, and the farmer decides that Sam is the drug dealer, and tries to run him off his land with a shotgun._

**_A/N: Hope you enjoy this little one shot. Watch out for overlooked typos._**

"**Winchester Down"**

"_GUHHH-shooo!_"

Losing his place in the tedious text again, caused Sam to close his eyes briefly and let out a hearty sigh of frustration. That was the tenth sneeze Dean had graced him with in the last half hour. Yes, Sam had been counting. "Dude, this information is hard enough to wade through without you interrupting me every five seconds." Sam griped as he turned to glare at his brother, sitting hunched on the side of the bed with a clinched fist full of tissues, eyes red and streaming.

"You thi... _uush_... thin... _aah-guhh_... k..._CHUHHFFF!_" Dean's snappy comeback was interrupted by a trumpeting sneeze, which was followed up with a honking bout of nose blowing, and ended with an angry scowl aimed in Sam's direction.

Shaking his head in puzzlement, Sam muttered. "Dean I have no idea what you were trying to say, but if I'm going to figure this pattern out I'm going to have to have less explosions from you."

"Sure Sam, I'll get ri... _haaatchh_...righ..._heee-KKKSHHH!_" Once again a thunderous sneeze cut Dean's rejoinder short. He stood up, brought the whole wad of tissues, clutched in his hand, up to his glowing nose and blew for all he was worth.

Sam looked on in mild admiration of the volume his brother achieved.

Wiping his nose in jerky movements, Dean flung the whole mess, of now soggy tissues, into the trashcan and then limped towards the door, grabbing his coat on the way. " 'M leabing Sabby. I'll go find somb clues on by own, so you cad have your precious peace." His grand exit included a finale of two squeaky sneezes.

"Don't forget your..." The slamming door resulted in Sam mumbling the last of his reminder. "...pain pills." Sam huffed impatiently, ever since that stupid poltergeist had tossed Dean down those stairs, his knee had been wrenched, which caused him to limp. He was supposed to take his medication on schedule to keep the pain from getting out of control and he was supposed to be wearing a brace. Both of these things seemed to be "forgotten" more times than not.

If he would just do what the doctor had told him, the knee would be well on its way to normal. But no, this was Dean and every time it started to get better, he would over do it and the process would have to start all over again. At the rate he was going, he would be limping well into the next millenium.

Sam also, really hoped those were allergy sneezes and not cold announcing ones, that Dean had been annoying him with. He decided that as soon as this hunt was finished, he would have to keep a closer eye on Dean and possibly find a way for them to have a few days off. He also needed to make sure they had some cold medicine and antihistamines in the first aid kit. Right now though, Sam wanted to finish this research and get on with the job. Surely, he reasoned, Dean would be fine for a few hours.

Dean gritted his teeth, holding in a pained moan as he steeped wrong and set his knee to twinging, again. Pausing to muffle another heart stuttering sneeze, he rubbed at the swollen joint through his jean, grumbling to himself about the damp air and all the reasons why he didn't enjoy freakin' nature. Here he was, out in the middle of a stupid forrest, with only a few dry tissues left, a stupid knee that should have been back to normal by now, but was far from it and the lack of anything resembling a clue. It was also really difficult to hold a shotgun, and tissues, and sneeze, and hobble along, and look for some monster of the week that was chowing down on the locals, all at the same time. Never let it be said that Dean was not a trooper though, he hung in there, snuffling and sniffling and almost shooting himself in the foot, but he kept stumbling along.

Reaching into his coat pocket, he extracted three, of his stash of pain pills, and dry swallowed them with a grimace. He paused in his trek, studying the surrounding terrain that had gradually changed. He seemed to have left the forrest and was now in the middle, of what looked like an orchard of some kind, lined with unkept gnarly trees and grown-up with underbrush. Dean couldn't identify what type of fruit these trees produced, but he hoped it wasn't apples. He had really acquired a quite unreasonable hatred of anything apple related after that last debacle with the pagan god in Indiana.

On the verge of heading back to the Impala, Dean stumbled, walking in a drunken stagger, attempting to catch his balance. A fiery itching in his nose, caused him to slow down and scrunch up his eyes as a particularly nuclear sternutation snapped his aching head forward into something hard. Opening his eyes, Dean found himself surprisingly face to hairy chest with what was probably the very thing he and Sam had been searching for. How the nasty had been able to sneak up on him, Dean would never know. Before he could back up or even introduce himself properly, another messy sneeze was delivered into the stinky fur his chaffed nose was buried nostril deep in. "HAAA-GGSHUFXX!"

The furry giant roared, the inhuman sound reverberating in Dean's ears. Then it flung itself violently away from the sneezing man; who was not so incapacitated that he couldn't level his weapon and fire, while the snot was still flying. John Winchester had never accepted any excuses from his boys for the inability to operate a weapon at any given time, so Dean, the well trained soldier that he was, didn't even need for his brain to be functioning for him to hit his mark every time he pulled the trigger.

When the gun fired, Dean was already off balance from the explosive sneeze and so went stumbling backwards, tripping over a fallen log, and ending up with his head resting on the only exposed rock for miles around. The last thing he heard, was the mournful howl of the mysterious creature, echoing in the darkness that enveloped him.

Soft, dappled light filtered through the russet colored leaves, dancing across Dean's face until it finally roused him from his dreamless state. With a soft groan, Dean opened his eyes squinting against the dim light. His head was pounding out an unsteady rhythm and his whole body felt achy and heavy. Bringing a hand up to press against his temple, he tried to survey his surroundings. He scanned the trees in confusion, wondering where Sammy was. Nothing looked familiar, clenching his hands in distress, he flinched realizing that one hand was clenched around a shotgun.

Using it as a crutch, Dean very carefully, rolled onto his side and eased into a sitting position. This change in altitude caused the scenery to morph into a blurry, whirling kaleidoscope of confusing colors. Squinching his eyes shut, he attempted to breathe through his stuffy nose, ended up panting instead, working desperately to stave off the intense nausea. Finally the rolling in his stomach settled enough that he could pull himself the rest of the way upright, but had to pause again as his left knee gave a viscous throb. "HAAGZJOOO-kkxxsss!" The horrendous expulsion almost succeeded in undoing all of Dean's hard work in gaining his feet, just moments before. He listed sideways as he recovered from the blast and the resulting pain, that felt like an electric shock to his entire body. Gasping, he stuttered stepped and then halted, bringing a sleeve up to wipe at his leaking nose. The rough sleeve succeeded in setting fire to his sore nose.

He took a half-dozen more limping steps, using the gun as a sort of cane, heedless of the danger of the careless action. There was a chill breeze now, rustling through the dry leaves and Dean found himself shivering as he stumbled along aimlessly. He had tried calling for his brother a few times, but his throat felt raw and his voice kept breaking and fading out in the middle. He also kept having to pause now and then in concession to the chill inducing sneezes as his vision teased him, with smearing colors and twinkling lights. "AHHGUB-KSHUHHHH!" The brutal sneeze surprised Dean and caused him to drop the gun and grab at his thundering head in agony. It took a few minutes for the pulsing pain to ease enough so that Dean could open his eyes again. He had no idea where he was or why he was wandering around in the dimming light. It felt like he was supposed to be doing something, but his fuzzy brain couldn't quite get a handle on his mission and so he kept limping and shivering and sneezing until he wasn't.

The elderly man, bundled up from head to toe, ambled along beside the swaybacked mule who was pulling a rickety cart loaded with the last of the season's apples. Even though the farmer wasn't able to keep the old orchard up like he used to, it still faithfully yielded enough fruit to sustain him and his wife and their simple lifestyle. The lumbering mule halted and the farmer grumbled and gave the animal a slap on its rump. With a snort, the mule stomped one hoof, flicked his stringy tail, but refused to budge.

"Dang stubborn beast." The weary man chided as he moved to grasp the frayed halter, tugging on it frustratedly.

The beast let loose a loud bray and nodded his head spiritedly, pulling away from the farmer's attempts to control him.

With a muttered, "Can-tankerous animal.", the farmer grabbed his hat and whacked the knobby back of the mule in consternation. He went to walk in front of the mule, when he noticed the shadowed lump lying in the path. "What in the world?" He wondered aloud as he crammed his dented hat back on his head and knelt down to see what the lump was. After seeing that it was an unconscious man, and unable to rouse him. The elderly farmer grasped the limp man and with a deep fortifying breath, proceeded to grunt and strain until he had maneuvered him onto the cart, amidst the mounds of apples, so that he could get him back to the house. Once the path was cleared, the mule headed towards home as easy as you please.

It took a considerable amount of dragging and heaving and many murmured prayers from the farmer's wife to get Dean settled on the sagging bed in their extra room. But they were caring people and wouldn't let a thing like back pain or wheezing stop them from helping a fellow human being in need. And this one sure seemed to be in need. He was sweating and shivering and sleep sneezing, all in all he was a mess.

"Oh, the poor dear." The farmer's wife tutted as she set about removing his boots and coat. A soft tinkling sound caught her attention. She glanced down and saw perhaps a dozen white, oblong pills scattered on the faded linoleum. With a gasp, she called for her husband, gathering them up to present to him when he entered the room.

"Mama? What have you got there?" He asked peering at the white pills held out for his inspection. "Are those drugs?" He asked in dismay.

"I believe they are and I feel certain that we have found a misguided young man who is addicted to them. Why just look at him. It's as plain as the nose on your face that he's in the withdrawals right now." She turned and pointed imperiously at Dean, who was racked with shivers and whose pale face was shiny with sweat, as proof of her claim.

The farmer stared in horror at the young man. Why had that young hooligan ended up on their property? They were forced to aid him now, but oh, how he wished Ol' Blue had never found him. "Yes, mama." He agreed, with a sigh. "It seems as if you are correct. We will do our best to help him, but it won't be easy I'm afraid." The couple shared a look of uncomfortable determination.

While Dean was being rescued and reformed, Sam was just finishing with his research. He was pretty confident in his conclusion, but was waiting on Bobby to call back, so he could double check a couple of facts with him. In the meantime, he had been calling Dean and only getting his voicemail. Dean only ever let his phone go voicemail when he was unable to actually answer. Checking his watch again with a grimace, Sam paced another nervous circuit around the room. Time had gotten away from him, while he was trying to decipher the fascinating but poorly written tome. Almost four hours had elapsed instead of the two he had anticipated and Sam was starting to worry about his absent sibling.

In the middle of these thoughts his phone rang, but it was Bobby. Bobby confirmed Sam's information, that it did indeed sound like a Jenu. Wild, hairy, huge and an appetite for human flesh. Related to Wendigos, with a few other weird traits added into the mix, made for a nasty monster. So, on the bright side, they were pretty easy to kill, if they didn't kill you first and Sam hoped they were easy to find. They carried a staff that was said to house the creature's power and usually hung out near orchards, using the pilfered fruit to keep their victims alive until they were ready to dine on them.

Running a hand through his hair in agitation, Sam put together a plan of action. First- find Dean, he needed to check the GPS in his phone, Second- check the local yellow pages for orchards, Third- he needed a shotgun loaded with rock salt ammunition, and Last- he needed transportation. The first item on his to-do list was relatively simple. The GPS showed Dean's phone, employing true Winchester luck, in the middle of the Mark Twain Forrest; which just happened to be, near the only orchard in the tri-county area. Sam blew out a breath. So, that was number two probably taken care of as well. Now for transportation and as for the shotgun, well wherever his brother was, the Impala was sure to be close by and that meant trunk full of weapons and ammo. Shutting the laptop, Sam grabbed his coat and shrugged into it, put his phone, the motel card and scribbled directions in his pockets and then headed out to the parking lot to see what sort of wheels were available.

Sam was starting to feel the edge of panic setting in when he checked his watch again. Dean had now been missing for almost eight hours. After finding an older vehicle to "borrow", Sam had followed the directions to the closest part of the forrest and found the Impala parked just off the road. Armed with a few supplies and his weapon, he had headed in the direction that the orchard was located. He just didn't think it would take this long to find it. Tired and cold and aggravated, Sam had no idea how his brother, with a wrecked knee, had walked this far. Just a few yards on, when Sam was about to turn around and try a different route, he found it, the dead Jenu.

Searching the area, did not reveal his lost brother, but it did turn up the Jenu's magic staff, which Sam broke. This was supposed to drain the power, if it had any and he hacked the head of the creature off with his machete, but left it where it lay. He also found Dean's phone, which sent Sam into full panic mode. He had to stop and take deep calming breaths, before figuring out which way to go. The Jenu couldn't have killed Dean, because Dean had apparently killed it first, but that didn't mean his dumb hero, brother wasn't injured and wondering around somewhere out there in the cold. And it was getting dark rather quickly, with only a sliver of moon and his flashlight to light the way, Sam decided on a direction to go and set out with single mindedness determination. He needed to find his brother now.

It was only a few more minutes before he stumbled across his brother's shotgun. He pushed the fresh worry aside, juggled his own weapon and bag and flashlight, until he was able to carry his brother's discarded gun too. When he topped the small rise, he saw that he was finally in the orchard and he could see a faint light in the distance. He felt a little spurt of hope that his brother had at least found help.

When Sam neared the house, he realized how late it was and decided to scout things out first before chancing knocking on the door. It was an older house, one story, with a porch that wrapped around the entire thing. There was a yard light on, but other than that it was dark. Quietly, Sam crept around the back. When he turned the corner, he saw that there was light back here. Brightly spilling out of two of the windows. He could also hear voices as he drew nearer.

"Papa do you think he's going to be all right? He's shivering something fierce." A feminine voice disturbed the quiet of the night. It was answered by a deeper male voice.

"He's one of those druggies mama. What do you expect? We'll help him though, let him sleep tonight and then try to reason with him in the morning."

The light was extinguished and the voices faded. Sam stood still for a moment wondering about the strange conversation. Could they be discussing Dean? He wasn't a druggie, but maybe he was hurt and they were confused or something. Cautiously, he crept over to the windows and easily pried one open, then shining his flashlight inside, surveyed the room, until the beam hit the bed and he recognized his brother's shirt. With a gusty sigh of relief, he climbed over the window seal and hurried over to check on Dean.

Dean was shivering and he seemed to be running a temp.

"Dean, hey. Can you wake up there bro?" Sam whispered hoarsely, shaking his brother's shoulder.

A soft, "hep-ssshhufff" was the only response he received.

Sam frowned, set the guns down on the floor, along with his pack and shined the flashlight directly into his sleeping brother's face. This got more of a reaction than he wanted.

Dean gave a raspy shout and jackknifed up in bed almost head butting Sam in the process. He was rambling nonsense about apples and tattoos and sasquatches, interspersed with coughing and sneezes. This was producing way more noise than Sam wanted at the moment. Dropping his flashlight on the bed, Sam pulled the bottle of Dean's pain medicine out of his pocket. He decided that maybe a couple of the pills might calm him down and then he could concentrate on getting them out the house as quickly as possible. But keeping his flailing, babbling brother quiet and getting him to stay still long enough for Sam to even open the bottle, turned out to be an impossible feat. He had one hand over his brother's mouth to stifle the successive sneezing and his other fisted around the bottle and pressing on Dean's chest. About the time Sam was considering the struggle to be a lost cause, the room lit up.

Blinking against the harsh brightness, Sam unceremoniously released his brother back on the bed and whirled around to face the danger. He was confronted by an elderly couple dressed in outdated bedclothes. The man was wearing a flannel night shirt that hung crookedly on his thin frame and the woman had on a similar flannel, but hers was ruffled and dragging on the floor. Sam wanted to sort of smile at the picture they made, they looked like that couple in the old book, "Twas the Night Before Christmas." The main difference though, was the antique rifle that was being leveled at him by a pair of shaky arms and the fretful squawking that was coming from the quivering woman at his side.

Carefully, Sam raised his arms in a sign of surrender, one fist clenched tightly around the pill bottle.

"Quiet mama." The man soothed gruffly. As the distressed squeaks tapered off, the man directed a flinty eyed glare towards Sam, asking, "Boy, what are you doing in our house in the middle of the night? God fearin' folk are trying to sleep."

"Uh, I'm not here to cause any harm. But this is my brother, Dean. Thank you for helping him. Now, I just want to take 'im home. Okay?" Sam reasoned in a calm voice.

The man looked him up and down, zeroing in on the orange bottle peeking out of Sam's fist. "What 'cha got there? In your hand?" He inquired suspiciously.

Sam brought his hand down slowly, unfurling his fingers, so that the bottle was revealed resting on his palm.

With a gasp, the women hid her face. The old man, took one hand off the rifle and gave her shoulder a consoling pat. "There, there mama." Frowning intently, he jerked his chin towards the bottle. "You a drug dealer? Come to feed this one's vile habit?" His gaze shifted to Dean who had gone quiet once this whole conversation had started.

"Huh?" Sam asked in confusion.

"Drugs." The man reiterated, bringing his gaze back to Sam. "You brought drugs into our house didn't you?"

"Um." Sam's eyes swiveled from the disappointed looking couple to the innocuous bottle in his hand as he tried to understand what had them so upset. "Yeah, but these are pain..."

The woman interrupted him in a high thin voice. "Yes! They cause pain. Drugs cause lots of pain young man. We are trying to help and here you are getting him started back up again. If you are his brother, then you are just... despicable." She accused, shaking her head sadly.

Dean decided to finally join the weird conversation. "Sammy, need m' pills pleeease."

Sammy turned his head to meet his brother's glassy, seemingly half -way lucid eyes.

"Stupid knee haaaz... huch-OOOOXGB!" The force of the sneeze snapped his head to the side. With a sorry little sniff, he moaned the last word, "...huuuurts..." sounding so pitiful, that Sam wanted to hug him.

"It's okay, Dean. I've..." Sam tried to answer.

But this time, the man interrupted. "Look what you have brought him to. He is begging for you to give him the drugs. When someone is... is this desperate..." The old farmer paused, shaking his head in defeat. "There is no way to help someone who doesn't want to be helped. We've tried but," He paused again, putting a comforting arm around his wife, before continuing. "You just can't save them all."

"No, papa." The woman whined softly, wringing her hands in despair.

"I'm sorry mama. We have to let him go back to his drugs and life of crime." With that dire pronouncement, he cradled his rifle and left the room, head hanging low, shirttail flapping limply about his bandy legs.

The old woman, sighed and looked to Sam. "You should be ashamed of yourself, encouraging this terrible habit." She pursed her lips and her shoulders slumped tiredly. "I guess you win this time." Then she turned her gaze to Dean, offering in a gentler tone. "If you ever decide to live a life without drugs or crime, you come back and we'll help you." She nodded stoically and then turned and trudged after her husband.

The room was perfectly silent for a moment.

Sam pivoted slowly to face his frowning brother, still half sprawled on the bed. "Wow, what just happened?" He asked in confusion.

Dean stared back at him blinking sluggishly, then answered congested voice. "I guess I'mb free do return do by life of drugs and crimbe Sabby."

Sam smirked and shook the pill bottle invitingly. "There's no time like the present. I bet you really need a couple of these don'tcha?"

Giving Sam a look of sincere gratitude, he held out his hand. "Lige you wouldn't believe bro."

_**~The End Thank you for reading and reviewing, if you have a minute. By the way, I have another little tag written for this, but I wanted to end it here. If anyone would like to read about the return journey and a little more comfort/recovery, let me know and I will post that as well. **_


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